Protagonists, Talents, and a Violin Named Clare.

Hi all!  Please welcome the wonderful Marni Graff to Killer Hobbies today!  Like Kate, Marni's protagonist loves dogs. Unlike Kate, she has true musical talent.  She plays a violin named Clare.  Why Clare?  Read on to find out.

Tracy Weber

When I designed the ‘bible’ for the protagonist of the Trudy Genova Manhattan Mystery Series, I knew I wanted nurse Trudy to have interests outside her medical consulting job at a movie studio, working on medical scenes filmed in New York City. She’s a dog lover who regularly walks in Riverside Park near her apartment to play with the dogs.

And since I’m a music lover, Trudy is one, too, but I went a step further: for her solace, I gave her the hobby of playing the violin.

Do I play the violin? Nope, the piano, a stringed instrument, too. But I love listening to violin music, and I have three close friends who are all violinists who gave me great descriptions of the kind of wood Trudy’s violin would be made of and how she should care for it.

I also had Trudy name her violin: Clare. Why Clare? Because that’s the name she wishes she’d been named by her German mom and Italian dad, instead of Gertrude Sofia Genova. Hence Trudy—because if your name was Gertrude, wouldn’t you rather be called Trudy?

I’m a huge fan of any musician who can play the violin like an extension of his or her arms, and of the amazing melodies they coax from what could otherwise sound like a screeching mouse caught in a door! Itzah Perlaman playing the theme from “Schindler’s List” is a favorite and it’s haunting melody is one I have Trudy trying to master in a scene where she describes her backstory and the mystery revolving around her father’s death. That mystery won’t be solved in the first novel, DEATH USNCRIPTED, premiering this month, but it will be addressed in a future novel.

In this debut, Trudy is working with womanizing actor Griff Kennedy, teaching him how to fake a heart attack. During taping he points his finger dramatically to Trudy just as he collapses, only this time the actor isn’t playing dead. With suspicion lighting on Trudy, she snoops and pokes her nose into the murder investigation to clear her name, frustrating NYPD Detective Ned O’Malley—whose family are regulars just down the street from Trudy’s studio at Lincoln Center. And Ned is a Perlman fan, too, which Trudy has yet to discover …

 

 

 

Marni Graff is the award-winning author of The Nora Tierney Mysteries set in England. Her first Trudy Genova Manhattan Mystery, Death Unscripted, is based on Graff’s own favorite nursing job, working for a movie studio as a medical consultant. Available at Bridle Path Press (www.bridlepathpress.com) and on Amazon this July.